Hunting and "Sport"

[Crouton]

One argument I've seen many times between hunters and animal lovers, is that the terminology is incorrect and that hunting should never be referred to as "sport".

I've been thinking about this lately, as there's currently a large anti-duck hunting campaign, where an animal group has gotten famous sports stars to pose on billboards with anti-hunting messages. These clearly highlight the fact that it isn't a sport. This is an example of one of them:

I think to solve this, we need to look at the definition of sport. And the first things that come up are these.

"an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment."

Sure, hunting involves physical exertion, but it doesn't involve teams competing against each other. So by this definition it doesn't fit. You can't say that a hunter is competing against wild animals, when the animals in question have no knowledge that they are involved in this "game".The second definition is this:

"a person who behaves in a good or specified way in response to teasing, defeat, or a similarly trying situation."

Definitely not related to hunting. But then there is this third definition.

"a physical activity (such as hunting, fishing, running, swimming, etc.) that is done for enjoyment"

It's true that you can do things like, running, swimming etc without competing against someone, and it is still considered sport. Although I personally think it's just considered exercise when it's just you on your own. This makes me wonder about terminology and how words and definitions change over the years. I feel like as we move further, the word sport and the act of hunting keep being seen as very separate things. I read that if you hunt for your food to survive, then it's just called hunting. But if you do it for enjoyment then it's called "sport". There is something twisted about getting enjoyment from taking the life of innocent living creatures, but that's a whole different story. It does seem like the only factor in whether hunting can be defined as sport or not, is whether the hunter is doing it because they have to, or if they get enjoyment out of it.

Pretty odd way to define a word, and quite dark reasoning behind it.

What do you think, should hunting be defined as a sport, or should that word be left to more traditional games like football, hockey etc.

 

[Bubbles]

"Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both opponents know they're in the game." - Paul Rodriguez Sr.

That right there pretty much sums up what I think about hunting. I don't consider it a sport. The only time I think hunting is okay is in the event of hunger, if you're starving because at the end of the day, man is also an animal. However, if you're hunting just for the sake of killing animals for trophies, then yeah, I'm not a fan... And I probably won't get along with you.

 

[Major]

Personally, I see hunting as more of a hobby than a sport. There is skill and physical exertion involved, sure, but there's no competition between two or more willing participants, and, to me, that competitive aspect is required for something to be called a sport.

 

[NewGamePlus]

Anything can be called a "sport" if people create and play by rules to it. I think a more accurate description of what they're trying to do here is say "Hunting is not Ethical". Shoot a clay disk and it's a sport. Shoot a duck, and it's animal murder. Calling either one a sport is irrelevant to the larger issue here.

 

[Crouton]

Anything can be called a "sport" if people create and play by rules to it. .

This is an interesting idea of what a sport is. People play by rules of all sorts of things, board games, cooking competitions, hell even drinking games have rules. Would you say things like that could be referred to as sports?

 

[NewGamePlus]

Yep.

Not to add further fuel to an already depressing topic, but I believe it was the Russians during some World War who did the same thing here as the ducks but with babies of people who were P.O.W.'s of something. Anything can be made a "sport" if treated like one. Sports can be stupid. Sports can be disgusting. Sports can be anything. Give it structure and it's a sport. Do it with living things instead of objects and it's still a sport. That's why things like Ultimate Fighting have a hard time winning people over in acceptability because the human beings are involved in the violent aspects of it. Even hockey still gets the same old stereotype that it's all fights all the time from people in sports media who don't even realize that it's evolved into something beautiful within the last 40 years, not what it's used to be.

Sport is basically a state of mind.

 

[MenInTights]

Personally, I see hunting as more of a hobby than a sport. There is skill and physical exertion involved, sure, but there's no competition between two or more willing participants, and, to me, that competitive aspect is required for something to be called a sport.

True. Never thought about it like that. Maybe the word sport is just to give cover for such despicable acts of cruelty such as fox hunting and coon hunting.
I love hunting myself and see great value in it. But can't stand the idea of scaring a raccoon up a tree and letting dogs tear it apart. If you're not going to eat it, leave it alone.

 

[Crouton]

True. Never thought about it like that. Maybe the word sport is just to give cover for such despicable acts of cruelty such as fox hunting and coon hunting.
I love hunting myself and see great value in it. But can't stand the idea of scaring a raccoon up a tree and letting dogs tear it apart. If you're not going to eat it, leave it alone.

That sounds horrible. I obviously would never hunt myself, and I am against it. But if your going to do it, do it quickly. Don't torture the poor things or hunt them in cruel ways, that raccoon hunting sounds awful.

For me personally, if you feel like you have to kill things, then at least hunt invasive species. I'm not sure what it's like in other countries, but Australia has huge problems with invasive species causing lots of problems for our environment. Animals like foxes, cats, rabbits etc. So if you have to hunt, hunt those! There's plenty of them. What I don't understand is when Australians hunt animals like native ducks and kangaroo's and other native animals. This is their country, they deserve to be here. If your going to do it at least help out by hunting the "pest" animals.

 

[MenInTights]

That sounds horrible. I obviously would never hunt myself, and I am against it. But if your going to do it, do it quickly. Don't torture the poor things or hunt them in cruel ways, that raccoon hunting sounds awful.

For me personally, if you feel like you have to kill things, then at least hunt invasive species. I'm not sure what it's like in other countries, but Australia has huge problems with invasive species causing lots of problems for our environment. Animals like foxes, cats, rabbits etc. So if you have to hunt, hunt those! There's plenty of them. What I don't understand is when Australians hunt animals like native ducks and kangaroo's and other native animals. This is their country, they deserve to be here. If your going to do it at least help out by hunting the "pest" animals.

That's a hard one for me too. I lived in Alaska where wolf hunting was done. I understand the theory of it. The wolves were overpopulating and killing the caribou but I hated to see that. There's nothing you can do with a wolf after killing it. I understand but I'd rather be part of nature than be nature's ruler.

 

[Hilander]

I don't consider hunting a sport, to me its just hunting, nor fishing for that matter. I have no problem with hunting as long as someone isn't hunting out of season or an endangered species.

I've been coon hunting a couple of times with my uncle and they never let the dogs tear the coon apart. I wouldn't have liked that if they had.